


Ouroboros

by Topaz_Eyes



Category: Strike Back
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Memories, Multi, Post-episode tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 07:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19080748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/pseuds/Topaz_Eyes
Summary: “I think I need to give Madison a chance to kick my ass in person.”  Wyatt goes to face the music after the events of the s7 finale.





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit always appreciated! All mistakes are mine. Quote in summary is from s7e10.

Wyatt rang the front doorbell to his soon-to-be former house and shuffled his feet impatiently, waiting for Madison to answer. Newly off the plane from Azerbaijan after a twenty-hour trip, he’d just remembered to call ahead from the Charleston airport to make sure she would be there so he could pick up his belongings.

Seconds passed, then a minute. Wyatt impulsively checked his watch. After what seemed like an eternity, he was just about to ring the doorbell again when he heard footsteps approaching. The door opened, and his wife – his ex-wife now, he reminded himself with a heavy heart – stood in front of him.

“Hi, Maddy.”

“Sam.”

From the high red spots on her cheeks, Madison looked like she’d been recently crying; the realization hit Wyatt like a brick. I did this to her, he thought, and guilt gnawed at his stomach. He wanted to take her in his arms, wanted to kneel at her feet and beg her forgiveness. Anything to wipe the profound disappointment from her face that he put there. Instead he remained perfectly still, hands at his sides. He had to fight not to clench them into fists.

They stared at each other for a moment. “You – you look great,” Wyatt offered.

She didn’t smile back. “You look tired.”

Wyatt ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, long flight, cramped seats. Can – can I come in?”

Madison pulled the door open wide enough for Wyatt to enter. “I took the liberty of packing your things so you can pick them up right now,” she said briskly, pointing at two bulging suitcases and a duffel bag already sitting on the wooden floor by the front closet. “I think I got everything that’s yours. If I missed anything, let me know and I’ll send it to you.”

Madison stepped back from the door to allow him inside. Wyatt crossed the few steps from the threshold to his waiting bags and squatted beside the duffel bag. It seemed way too small to contain all his armament from behind the false panel in the bedroom. He opened it, finding only his sports equipment.

 _Shit_. He rifled through the contents to confirm there were no weapons inside. “Where are all my guns?” he asked, turning to open the suitcases to check.

“I turned them in to the police.”

Wyatt paused, then stared up at her in disbelief. “You did _what_?” He tensed and rose, fists clenching in fury.

She stood firm, pursing her lips for a moment before she answered. “You knew, Sam. You knew, and you still went against my express wishes.”

There was no anger, only resignation in Madison’s voice. Wyatt looked away again, instantly ashamed and unable to meet her eyes. “You’re right,” he acknowledged, “you’re right. I can’t begin to say how sorry I am that I betrayed your trust.”

“No, you’re only sorry you got caught,” she replied. “Please don’t patronize me.”

He nodded; she was right there too. “I’d do it again if I thought it was necessary.”

“Exactly.”

He sighed and bent down again, swung the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder, and picked up the suitcases, wincing slightly at the twinge of pain that still shot through his left side. “Is there anything you want to say to me, Maddy?” he asked, puzzled by her distance.

He’d be lying to himself if he hadn’t wanted a fight. He’d been prepared for anger, for spite, for recriminations; he’d secretly hoped for a confrontation, something to push back against. He could deal with her hate. He wasn’t prepared for her cool, measured, almost indifferent calm.

Madison spread her arms open. “What is there left to say?”

The truth of the words struck as clear as a bell. Wyatt sighed and bowed his head for a moment. I guess not, he thought. He then looked up. “Are there any papers I need to sign while I’m here?”

She shook her head. “I never cancelled the annulment. I thought, maybe after a year, if things continued to work out between us, we could renew our vows –”

At that her facade cracked; one hand flew to her mouth and she blinked rapidly, looking upwards towards the ceiling. Wyatt’s eyes stung too. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, dropping the bags down on the floor and taking a step towards her. “Maddy, I’m so sorry – ”

Madison waved him away and hugged herself around her middle. Wyatt stopped his approach and stood by helplessly as she drew a deep breath to pull herself together. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and withdrew a small, royal blue velvet box.

Wyatt’s heart sank as he recognized it. _No._ She pinned him with her fierce, watery gaze and held the box out to him.

“Just promise me you’ll be _better_ next time, Sam. Be a better man to whoever is crazy enough to have you.”

He swallowed, chastened by that look. “I’ll try.” Reluctantly, his hand shaking, he reached out and took the box from her palm.

One side of Maddy’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Goodbye, Samuel.”

There was nothing else to do but for Wyatt to shove the box in his shorts pocket; pick up his bags again, turn around, and walk out the door for the last time. He dared not look back, afraid of what he might see on Madison’s face.

On the front step, he winced at the click of the front door closing for good behind him.

The entire visit had taken less than five minutes.

~~

“Can you believe Madison surrendered all my guns to the police station?” Wyatt said. “Didn’t want them in the house after.”

Wyatt and Mac sat in a high-backed booth in the near-deserted roadside saloon on the outskirts of Florence, the table covered with four empty beer mugs each containing a shot glass; a jug of water; and a half-full bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

Mac had been waiting, parked across the street in the rental car, when Wyatt exited the front door of Maddy’s house. Mac had met Wyatt on the curb and took two of the bags. They’d silently loaded the trunk of the car, got in, and drove straight here. The air-conditioned chill of the saloon was a stark contrast to the brutal August humidity outside.

Mac’s mouth quirked in sympathy. “Can’t you go to the station and get them back?”

“They might not have been obtained legally, and I don’t want to be arrested trying to retrieve them, so no, I can’t get them back. They’re gone. And that sucks. Lost my good machine pistol, too.”

The waitress arrived with another full beer mug and empty shot glass, and whisked away the empty ones. Since they’d arrived, Mac had filled his tumbler with one finger of bourbon from the bottle and the rest with water. He sipped his drink and watched Wyatt pour his fifth shot of bourbon and dropped it straight into the beer. The glass landed with a clink on the bottom; the heavier alcohol swirled as it mixed into the beer. Wyatt picked up his mug and sculled a good half of it down.

“You might want to slow down a bit there, Wyatt,” Mac said quietly when Wyatt set his mug back on the table.

Wyatt only snorted and dug his fingers into a rapidly-disappearing bowl of peanuts between them. He popped a few into his mouth and sucked the salt from his fingers. “Yeah, the peanuts are going down pretty easy. Hope the waitress brings a second bowl next time she comes round.”

Mac rolled his eyes. It was clear, Wyatt intended to settle in for the rest of the afternoon, and wasn’t going to leave until he was good and ready. Good and soused. Most likely both.

“You know, men like us aren’t meant for love, Mac,” Wyatt pronounced after he’d finished his fifth beer-and-bourbon.

Mac scoffed and shook his head. “Speak for yourself, mate.”

Wyatt peered at him, curious. “What, are you holding out on me? You have a secret wife, two kids, and a mansion on the Yorkshire moors?”

Mac chuckled at that. “England’s not that small."

“No, but...” Wyatt paused, trying to order his thoughts through his alcoholic haze. “That’s what we’re all taught to aspire to, like, from the cradle, you know? You’re born, you work hard, you do what’s right, you get your reward. The family, the dog, the white picket fence.”

His face turned glum, and he pushed his empty mug away. “But half the time you end up divorced, you pay child support, and you live in a basement apartment you can’t afford.” He picked up and held Mac’s still nearly-full glass up to the frosted light above their table and studied the amber liquid sloshing inside. “At least I don’t have the child support.”

“You know that’s not the only version of happily ever after, yeah?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

Wyatt raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “What’s your version of ‘happily ever after’, then, Sgt. Thomas ‘Mac’ McAllister? If you even have one?”

Mac frowned at his tumbler dangling in Wyatt’s grip. “Dunno. I always thought I’d be promoted up the ranks, get my twenty-two years in, retire with my full pension. Worry about the rest later,” he said after a moment.

“In conclusion, no, you don’t have one either. Congratulations, Mac, you’re as pathetic as the rest of us.” Wyatt tilted Mac’s bourbon towards Mac in a mock toast and drained it in one swallow.

“Dickhead,” Mac said, “you owe me a drink there.”

“Put it on my tab.”

Mac shook his head. “Still doesn’t mean we’re not meant for love,” he continued.

Wyatt grinned sourly; he was on a self-pitying roll and Mac wasn’t going to ruin it for him. “You mean the in-mission flings? How are those working out for you? Didn’t Rosa almost get you hanged by the Magyar Ultra? And if I remember correctly, Sophia the spy tased you after you boinked her.”

Mac’s jaw twitched; Wyatt knew they were sore spots with him, but he didn’t care. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that,” Mac muttered.

“Yeah, well, like I should talk. I got Lila killed, and Samira died trying to avenge her father.”

Wyatt sighed and pulled the small velvet box from his pocket and set it on the table. Mac’s eyes widened briefly, then narrowed as he worked out what had happened. “Madison gave you her ring back?”

Wyatt snorted his assent. “Very perceptive, Mac.”

“Why didn’t you refuse it?”

Wyatt pushed the box around with his finger. “She didn’t want it anymore. Wasn’t right to make her keep it against her will.”

“Yeah, but now you have to decide what to do with it.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Not like it’s worth much.”

“Mate, it’s a wedding ring, it means something --”

“I bought it for twenty-five dollars at Goodwill.”

Mac’s mouth dropped almost comically. “Last of the big-time spenders,” he quipped once he regained his composure.

“I was young and broke and deploying to Iraq in two days. Not like I had the time or money to pick up something nice. Maddy understood.”

“But it still means something – ”

“Yeah, well, we were living in sin the past four months, so maybe not so much now.”

Suddenly fed up with just sitting and drowning his sorrows, Wyatt jumped to his feet and slid out of the booth, knocking his empty mug over with his elbow. Mac winced visibly at the crash.

“I’m going for a walk,” Wyatt said. “I need some air.” He grabbed the box from the table and turned sharply on his heel.

He could feel Mac’s gaze burning on his back as he made his somewhat loopy way out of the bar. Wyatt wasn’t going to admit he desperately wanted Mac to follow him out of the bar and join him, but he wasn’t going to look back to check, either. Mac will follow if he wants, he thought.

The humidity outside hit like the proverbial brick wall after the cool inside of the saloon, and within minutes Wyatt’s pink and teal Hawaiian shirt was soaked. God damn but South Carolina in August was as bad as Kuala Lumpur. Hands shoved in his pockets, Wyatt stalked from the parking lot towards the wisteria-lined cinder lane leading to the highway, feeling wildly out of place yet again.

Thanks to his mom’s doomsday cult obsession, he’d missed his chance to grow up in a nice, normal town like this. Once he’d hoped to raise a family in a town like this, if not here exactly, when he thought a routine life was still possible for him after the service. After he’d returned from Myanmar, still recovering from his gunshot wound, he’d told himself he could still have it all with Maddy.

Until he’d found himself paralyzed with fear one Thursday morning in the cereal aisle of Kroger’s supermarket.

All he’d wanted was to buy one damn box of corn flakes and a quart of milk. Instead, he’d hyperventilated every time a shopper rounded the corner with their cart.

Why the hell had that been so hard? He’d just managed to pay at the checkout and forced himself to walk, not run, outside to the parking lot. He’d barely made it to the car before he leaned over and retched up his morning coffee onto the pavement.

And after all that, he’d left the grocery bag at the till. He’d never gone back to retrieve it.

And that had been it, hadn’t it, as he’d explained to Mac in Hong Kong, when he knew civilian life wasn’t going to work out for him after all. There was no safe harbour anywhere except for work. He’d begun tracking down Kingfisher leads when he returned from the mall, after his panic had died down and his stomach settled. Maddy didn’t have to know as long as he kept it to computer work.

As long as he lied to her. As long as he broke his promise to her, of no guns in the house. Taking that security job with Caleb Montgomery under false pretences. Spinning lie after lie after lie until he almost got Madison killed, listened to it all go down by mobile phone, half a world away and utterly helpless to do anything about it.

Yeah, he was kind of a dirtbag when he put it that way.

No, not just “kind of.”

He looked up at a brown blur, to a roughly-carved wood sign that read “Melvin Lake, ¼ mile”, placed at the mouth of a winding dirt path leading through a stand of birch. A swim would be perfect right about now, he thought. He followed the path from the cinder lane, five minutes away from the path, to the muddy shore of what was, kindly, a greenish, still pond, nestled in a ring of old-growth trees.

Another rough-hewn sign on the shore of the lake stated “No swimming.”

Well, shit, that was disappointing. The shore, however, was dotted with all sorts of stones that appeared to be made for skipping. Wyatt hadn’t skipped rocks across a lake in years. Decades. He crouched and pried at the wet sand until he had gathered a small hoard of roundish, smooth stones that he slid into his pockets.

He then stepped to the edge of the lake, letting the water soak through his worn tennis shoes. The lukewarm water felt cooler than the air, at least. He picked one stone, weighed it in his hand, then whipped it with a sidearm throw at the surface of the water. It skimmed and rose once, twice and finally a third time before it broke through with a plop and sank to the bottom.

“Looks like I still got it,” he said, and launched a second, then a third.

He’d thrown almost all of his stash when he heard a soft, wry voice behind him. “So there you are.”

Wyatt paused just as he was about to throw another stone. Maybe he should’nt’ve let Mac come with him at all to South Carolina to face his reckoning with Madison, though he was secretly grateful for his company. He didn’t know if he’d have been able to leave the house if Mac hadn’t been waiting in the car for him.

He felt weird telling Mac that, though. “How’d you find me?” he asked instead.

Mac crossed the rest of the distance to stand beside him at the water’s edge. “Footprints from the sign aren’t that hard to miss.”

Wyatt snorted and side-armed the stone in his hand. It sank without skipping once.

“You broke my winning streak, Mac,” Wyatt complained. “I was nine for nine before you showed up.”

“Bite me.”

Wyatt’s hand curled around the box in his pocket. “Did I ever tell you how I proposed to Maddy?” he said after a moment.

Mac cocked his head at him, quietly alert. “Don’t think so.”

Wyatt withdrew the box from his pocket and opened it. The plain, pale gold band shone in the cloud-filtered sun. “It was a day like this, actually. Hot, muggy, threatening rain. I was killing time waiting for Madison. Walked past the Goodwill downtown and went inside to look around just to get out of the heat. Saw this on a tray of rings in the jewellery display case. Bought it on a whim. Didn’t even know why I did at the time.”

He pulled the ring out of the box and weighed it in his palm, speaking to the ring. “Met Madison after her classes at the college later that day. She was training to be a nurse. We got in her beater and drove out to the local makeout point. We sat on the hood of her car and laughed and talked for hours, and I looked at her and thought, I’ve only known this woman for ten days, but I want to marry her _right now_. So I pulled the ring out from my pocket and proposed right as it began to pour fucking buckets of rain. In five seconds we were soaked to the skin. We ran and jumped into her car. Rain was so loud I couldn’t hear her answer inside, even when she shouted in my ear. She ended up signing ‘yes, I will marry you’ like we were in the field.”

Wyatt’s fist curled shut around the ring. “We sat in the car and cuddled and watched the rain until it let up, then we drove back to the college and found the school chaplain who agreed to perform the ceremony that evening. Just me and Maddy, her best friend and my squad leader to witness. Spent the best two days of my life with her. Then I deployed on Task Force Eighteen and it all went downhill from there.”

Mac shook his head in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said. He hesitantly reached out a hand, as if to clap his shoulder, but pulled it back at Wyatt’s glare.

Wyatt shoved the ring back into the box and the box into his pocket. “I was a shitty husband to Madison,” Wyatt said, “and I’m a shit friend to you. I didn’t even say goodbye to you when I left the team. Said goodbye to everyone else. Novin, Coltrane, Chetri. Hell, even Zarkova got a ‘see you later’.”

“Yeah, you’re a shite friend,” Mac agreed, “no argument there.” He peered at him. “Always wondered, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“The people I love the most, I always end up treating them like crap,” Wyatt continued, as if he never heard the question. “So I’ve decided I’d rather push them away than stare at them down the barrel of a rifle at some point. Doesn’t matter which end it is or who’s holding it. It’s easier that way.”

Mac gaped at him, stunned, but Wyatt ignored it; instead he reached into his pocket. Down to his last stone. Or the ring.

“Point being, I don’t love a lot of people anymore, Mac. Don’t want to, it’s not worth it. It hurts too god damn much in the end.” Wyatt threw his last rock. He watched as it skimmed over the surface of the lake four, five, six times, all the way to the other side before it sank. “I always lose them to my own stupidity.”

“I think you need to get some therapy, mate,” Mac said carefully.

Wyatt guffawed. “Madison was right to throw me out and surrender my guns to the authorities. And you know what? I’m proud of her that she did that.”

“You’re proud that she threw you out.”

“Damn right I am. I was never good enough for her. I knew that, she knew that. She took me anyway until I betrayed her once too often.”

He bored the ground with the toe of his shoe, trying to loosen more skipping stones from the dirt, but only succeeded in digging a small, deep hole in the mud. Mac studied him warily. “Wyatt – _Sam_. It’s all right – ”

Wyatt looked up and stared into the distance towards the other side of the blurring shore. “It’s not _okay_ , Mac, it will never be _okay_. I blew my one chance at happiness and a normal life with Madison and I almost got her killed. She’s lucky to escape from me with her life. Too many people don’t survive my acquaintance.”

Wyatt shook his head, blinking rapidly. Great, now I’m going to bawl in front of McAllister, he thought. Furious with himself, he swiped at his face. He turned around, to the stand of pond cypress behind them on the bank and stumbled towards them. Nowhere left to run; but fuck it, he was tired of running.

He let himself slump to the ground against one of the grand trunks. “My life’s a fucking mess,” he said, just barely able to keep his voice steady, and he drew his knees to his chest, forehead resting on them.

After a moment he heard a rustle of grass and leaves beside him; Mac had sat down, his shoulder almost touching. Wyatt didn’t dare look over at him, still fighting to keep whatever fragile hold on his emotions remained.

When he finally believed he’d pummelled his feelings back down into submission, he looked up. “What do I do, Mac?” he asked after a long minute. “What the fuck do I do?”

“You could try not being a dick,” Mac replied, not unkindly, after another pause.

Wyatt laughed a wry chortle. “You know, Madison told me the same thing. ‘Be a better man to whoever is crazy enough to have me.’” He shook his head again.

“She’s not wrong,” Mac agreed.

“What, no ‘Someone would have to be out of their mind to have me?’”

“Reckoned that went without saying.”

“Yet here you are.” He peered at Mac, genuinely curious. “Why did you come with me to Florence?”

Mac shrugged and shifted his legs, looking rather uncomfortable. “Dunno. Breaking up with your wife, figured you could use some support in your corner.”

“Which I appreciate more than you know. Thanks for coming, Mac, I mean that.” Huh, maybe it wasn’t so weird to voice his gratitude after all.

The briefest flash of surprise crossed Mac’s face, followed by a small half-smile. “Yeah, sure.”

They both looked upwards at a rumble of thunder in the distance. “What’s a South Carolina summer without a couple of thunderstorms a day?” Wyatt said.

“Sounds far enough away to me.”

“Actually they roll in fast around here,” Wyatt said. “Should get back to the car before the rain starts.”

They got up and raced back to the cinder path leading back to the saloon. They reached the rental in the parking lot just as large drops of ice-cold rain began to patter down.

“Shit, here it comes,” Wyatt said. Mac fumbled with the remote to open the locks; within seconds they were drenched by the cloudburst. He finally unlocked the doors and they slid in, soaking wet.

The inside of the car was eerily, deafeningly quiet in contrast. They looked at each other as the rain outside lashed the parking lot in sheets, obscuring everything in sight.

“Looks like we’re stuck awhile,” Mac said quietly.

Wyatt nodded, his throat growing tight. Of course they were, he thought. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He reached into his pocket, his hand closing around the box, and pulled it back out. God _damn_ it. His lower lip trembled despite his most valiant effort to control it.

“You okay?” Mac asked after a beat.

Wyatt shook his head and slumped in his seat. “No, I’m not, Mac,” he said, his voice breaking on the last word. He dropped his head in his hands.

The next thing he knew, Mac had tugged him over and guided his head onto his shoulder. Wyatt buried his face in the crook of Mac’s neck. Mac lowered the lee side window of the car a crack to allow the sound of driving rain back inside, and they waited for the storm to pass.

When the rain let up some minutes later, Wyatt sniffed, drew back with a shaky sigh and wiped his eyes with his fist. He lowered the passenger window all the way down, and whipped the blue velvet box with the ring out the window, not seeing or caring where it landed.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said thickly.

Mac started the car, put it in gear, and they pulled out of the parking lot towards the highway.


End file.
